Last 7 Letters
by postwillows
Summary: 100 times Nymphadora Tonks meets Remus Lupin. "That's a nice looking dog," she lies conversationally. "He's for sale, please take him," the man says.
1. Introduction

_title is from a song by oneohkay_

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**1\. Introduction**

The first time they meet, Nymphadora Tonks is pretty sure she got the wrong address.

Kingsley'd slipped her the note at work, and upon reading it an hour later, she realized that it was distinctly _not_ Kingsley's handwriting. With Kingsley already out of the office, unsure whose handwriting is even on the slip, and little knowledge of as to who else is actually in this exclusive social club, she'd shrugged and made her way to the location that had been provided.

Except that 12 Grimmauld Place literally does not exist and now she's out on the pavement looking real dumb.

There's a man walking his dog approaching, and Tonks suddenly tries to look like she knows what she's doing standing smack in the middle of the sidewalk, and not like she was just staring at the slip of paper in her hand seriously wondering if whoever wrote this note even knew how to count. Evidently they do not, but equally as evident, Tonks does not know to how to play it cool, because as the man draws closer, she starts internally panicking. Should she make eye contact and smile and nod in greeting so as to appear friendly and definitely-not-looking-for-a-sketchy-club-headquarters, or look away nonchalantly so as to draw less attention to herself?

She ends up somehow doing both and makes it pretty obvious that she feels very awkward and has no idea what she's doing here.

The stranger has a friendly smile as he draws closer. Rather than reciprocate like any normal person, Tonks does a weird mouth twitch that was supposed to be a smile, looks away quickly in mortification, but then back at the man because that probably looked super suspicious. Screaming at herself internally, she can't maintain eye contact for long and instead looks down at the man's dog which she swears is laughing at her as it pants and wags its tail happily.

"Evening," the man says to her, and oh no, he's stopped in front of her, and this is exactly what she was trying to avoid with her little mouth spasm. Apparently years of rigorous Auror training and work have done her absolutely no good and she's about to get turned in to the Muggle police for looking like a creep and not knowing how to smile properly.

"Wotcher," she says with a nod and what she hope passes for a smile this time around, but it feels strained because she's feeling strained and stressed, and as soon as she gets out of Muggle jail, she's gonna hex whoever wrote this note for not knowing how to write addresses correctly, and she's also gonna hex Kingsley for not proofreading it before he passed it on to her.

She takes a deep breath to calm herself down and reminds herself that even if she's trash at smiling, she can still pull off an effective Obliviate spell, and so she really does not need to worry about Muggle jail.

With that realization, Tonks has a sudden surge in confidence that can only come when knowing for certain that no matter how much of a fool you make of yourself, this person is not going to remember.

(If it comes to that, which she sort of hope it doesn't, since like, she's sure she can manage to Obliviate this man, but she's never had to perform the spell on a dog before, but she really doesn't appreciate the way it keeps wagging its tail like its amused with her.)

"That's a nice looking dog," she lies conversationally.

"He's for sale, please take him," the man says with a little grin, and the creature in question bounds towards Tonks in one leap, licking at her hand as if demanding her to pet him.

Tonks laughs and obliges. "I would, but he seems very needy."

"Oh, the worst," the man agrees solemnly, his grin growing a little wider as his dog whines a bit, nuzzling into Tonks a bit more as if trying to tell her she's not doing a good enough job at petting.

Which is fine, she'll add that on to the list of things she's not good enough at today. Finding secret headquarters, smiling, petting dogs.

The man seems to think the opposite, though, since he says, "He seems to like you."

And Tonks takes that personally, smiling victoriously as she strokes the dog's shiny black fur.

"So, are you lost?" And, well, Tonks freezes up and wow, she really had all this time petting this dog to think of a cover story but nope. The incredibly needy dog is having none of that though, and with much whining and nudging, coaxes Tonks' hands back into motion.

"I, no. I'm not. I just," Tonks starts, but then, "yeah."

The man chuckles, but it's kind, and for the first time, she takes a good look at the stranger, takes in his shabby tweed jacket and lightly graying sandy hair, one hand in his pocket and easy smile on his lips and Nymphadora Tonks has never believed in love at first sight before but she's willing to reconsider.

"I was looking to meet a friend but then I think he gave me the wrong address, so here I am, friendless and petting a stranger's dog."

The man laughs, says, "Oh, he's not my dog. But I'll be your friend if you'd like." He extends his hand towards her, and unfortunately for not-the-man's-dog, she has to pause in what has been near incessant petting to shake her new friend's hand. "Severus Snape," he says as she shakes his hand firmly.

And she immediately drops his hand as though it was scathing hot. Surely he isn't. He isn't. "You're not," she says with far less certainty than she'd like before she realizes the man is barely restraining his laughter at her horrified face.

"No, I'm not. But glad to see we do in fact run in the same circles if that evoked such a reaction," not-Severus says with a wink.

Tonks isn't sure whether to laugh or growl but she definitely does not want to do a mixture of both this time around, so she opts for doing nothing. She just stands there, slack jawed and trying to picture Professor Severus Snape walking his dog around the neighborhood.

After a moment, not-the-dog-of-not-Severus has had enough of being ignored and once again tries to urge Tonks into motion. Before he can succeed though, the sand haired man has extended his hand once again, and this time when Tonks takes it tentatively, he says, "Remus Lupin. And you must be Nymphadora."

"Tonks," she corrects him swiftly, never mind that her name has never sounded so beautiful.

"Tonks," Remus repeats. "Are you always so formal Ms. Tonks, or is the lack of familiarity due to my initial introduction as your former potions professor?"

"What? I - no, why - just, my name is Tonks, no 'Ms.', just Tonks," she sputters before she realizes that Remus is laughing and now she _knows_ that not-Remus'-dog is laughing too, she can just tell.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Tonks, but we should probably head inside before they start without us," and Remus is nodding to the spot between numbers 11 and 13 where she'd been staring earlier, and as she follows his eyesight, suddenly she realizes and suddenly it makes sense and of _course_ number 12 just pops into existence like it'd been there all along, and now even this crummy flat looks like it's laughing at her tonight.

"Right. Yeah. I, uh. Mhm," she says confidently.

And despite his previous teasing, bless Remus for only having kindness in his smile, and Tonks can only return it widely.

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_bother me on tumblr or insta at postwillows_


	2. Love

_rewrote completely to fit the theme better_

**2\. Love**

Friday evening.

Tonks _loves_ Fridays.

She especially loves Friday evenings, when all the work is done and she doesn't have to go into the office for the entirety of the weekend.

It doesn't mean she doesn't have to work at all, of course, since she's both basically a magical cop and an affiliate of an underground rebel organization. And those two aspects of her life are pretty time consuming, not to mention come with a variety of surprises.

Regardless, Tonks loves Fridays. And today is Friday. And it's evening, meaning her cop day is over. But it's evening, meaning her second meeting at the Order is about to begin. Fortunately, the thrill of being a part of a secret resistance/rebellion/reckless-band-of-wizards-and-witches is still so fresh that she's fairly excited to be spending her evening in a meeting. Particularly if it means sitting next to not-Severus, and not-the-dog-of-not-Severus, who coincidentally ends up was Tonks' _cousin _(and so yes, all those times that she thought the needy-but-charming dog was laughing at her, in fact was).

She's fairly exhausted after a day's work of planting false leads on Sirius Black (a quite new development, as up until a week ago she had been chasing Kingsley's false leads), as well as _actual_ Auror responsibilities. Recently, she's been tasked with going undercover to bust a dark artifacts trade ring.

Given her unique skillset, the metamorphmagus is often assigned a significant portion of the undercover jobs. Which, you know, is great and all, once they actually identify and arrest the dark wizards she's hunting. The problem is operations can take weeks or even months to play out, while busts take all of what, a few hours? And then it's on to a new investigation. And sure, assuming a new identity is fun, if not incredibly stressful and filled with risks and the occasional death threat that somehow finds its way to her desk.

And so, considering her job, taking on responsibilities as a member of the Order seems like child's play at times.

And then there are times where Order responsibilities are pretty much actual child's play.

Like today, for instance.

Remus Lupin, a senior member of the Order, having been part of the OG Order of the Phoenix during the First War, takes his roles very seriously. Sometimes his role involves trailing suspected Death Eaters, sometimes he keeps watch to make sure people (or objects) stay safe. Sometimes he babysits Sirius Black.

Yes, Lupin knows how incredibly dangerous it is for his friend to be out in public, Animagus or not, with the majority of magical Law Enforcement out looking for him. However, he also knows that his old reckless classmate will actually start destroying things if he doesn't leave the confinement of this musty flat at least once every few weeks.

Which, granted, Grimmauld Place has nothing on Azkaban and their more than accommodating guards, but maybe it has something to do with freedom and fresh air within a few steps as opposed to Azkaban's rather remote location. Regardless, Sirius finds himself getting cabin fever, and his poor caretaker feels obliged to help his friend out by escorting him around the neighborhood every so often.

And which brings Tonks and Lupin to their current predicament.

"Sirius, we went just last week, shouldn't you be keeping a low profile?" Lupin sighs like he's actually considering giving in.

"And when was the last time you spent seven days locked in a dreary flat, Moony? Unwillingly, I should add, I dunno what you got up to or lack thereof while I was _unwillingly_ locked away in _prison_ for twelve _years_," Black prods his friend's arm to emphasize his torment.

Tonks snorts, unsure if that was amusing or depressing.

"Moony, you love walks."

"Yes, by myself."

"I can't even talk to you, you're basically by yourself."

"And leave your cousin here to be the first to greet Severus when he arrives?"

"Well don't be a rude git, invite her."

And so Lupin turns his head to his right and looks right at Tonks. "Ms. Tonks, would you like to accompany your needy cousin and I on a walk?"

"I'm sorry, what did you call me?" Both Tonks and Black ask at the same time.

"Tonks, fancy taking a stroll around this lovely dodgy neighborhood with your extremely needy cousin and I?"

"I would _love_ to."

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_a/n: writing is difficult feed me reviews _


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